The Debut of Transcendent Terrorism
As the smoke clears in New York and Kabul, one blind spot still
blocks the Western lens in the war against terror. There remains no
official definition of "terrorism." The need for such a definition
was affirmed by representatives of over 150 countries at a UN
conference held in October 2001 on "What is Terrorism?" They came
armed with prior resolutions that ban terrorism in any context, no
matter its grievance or goal. But the delegates argued that in order
to isolate and criminalize the act itself, they would need to
identify it. Otherwise, future thugs who massacre innocent civilians
could argue that their case is somehow different, or somehow
justified by context. They could claim: "One man´s terrorist is
another man´s freedom fighter."

Yet the member states could not agree on a definition. Officials like
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher argued that there was
no need for one: U.S. law (and arguably UN resolutions) already
boasts formulations of terrorism. Like their English and Canadian
counterparts, however, these standard interpretations can be shown to
be inadequate for capturing the most dangerous new breed of terror.

They stem from the traditional Western doctrine. For decades, the
West has been gripped by an orthodoxy that holds that all terrorists
act for political purposes. Violence occurs to advance some cause or
redress some political grievance. Hence, all definitions of terrorism
in American and English law include clauses like "to achieve a
political end." In other words, terrorists are just like everyone
else, with political ambitions and strategic designs, except that
they will resort to terrible deeds to achieve their goals.

This view has consequences: it means that terrorists could be
thwarted either by appeasing their grievances or by frustrating their
political strategies. But recent events have exposed a phenomenon
that has long eluded Westernminds: the transcendent terrorist. Like
their political counterparts, these killers seek to cut off as much
innocent life as possible, maiming where they fail to kill, hurting
where they fail to maim, and spreading anguish and suffering with
abandon. Unlike other terrorists, however, their murders are not
directly calculated to achieve their political aspirations (though
they may have many of them). Rather, they act for religious or
symbolic ends, or in the name of an ideology that transcends the
immediate, earthly consequences. Their terror fulfills a value in its
own right, like striking at an enemy deemed inherently unholy:
transcendent terror.

These are clearly the most dangerous of terrorists. Changes in policy
or deterrence are useless against such murderers, because they often
are driven by something beyond practical outcomes and are not afraid
to die. Yet they are also the ones who lie outside the scope of
nearly all existing statutes, definitions, and accounts of terror.
What follows is an attempt to expose and correct this misconception,
which plagues both the definition and the understanding of terrorism
in the West, and particularly in the U.S. These views need to be
updated if they are to capture the reality of the transcendent
terrorist.

Current Definitions Fall Short
It is certainly possible to define terrorism in a manner that
incorporates transcendent terror, as well. One could focus on the
following feature: violence directed at civilians identified with a
distinct community, be it religious, political, or ethnic. That, in
fact, is what all terrorism has in common.

But a close look at statutes meant to prohibit this behavior reveals
a lot of room for violators to slip through the cracks. For example,
a UN resolution prohibits, inter alia: "Any other act intended to
cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other
person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of
armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or
context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or
an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any
act."1

Where this definition falls short is its failure to include anyone
who commits acts like the September 11 attack, but without such
ambitions as intimidation or coercion. Yet the evidence suggests that
at least some of the hijackers acted out of a feeling of divine
imperative or opposition to the U.S. as "the enemy of Allah," without
regard to political achievements. Does that mean they are not
terrorists?

The difficulty goes beyond mere semantics. Definitions that tie
terrorism to particular aims serve to reinforce the notion that the
act itself -- the deliberate murder of innocent civilians just for
being American, for example -- could actually be justified if
different, perhaps worthy, goals were at play. Possible exceptions
include a mass murderer who acts out of revenge, or to call attention
to a legitimate plight. Those who bomb abortion clinics are often
called "terrorists," but this definition would exclude them, too:
they do not seek to pressure a government or necessarily to
intimidate a nation. They may seek simply to strike at the "evil"
doctors.

Many countries seem plagued by this inability to define terrorism
beyond specific political objectives. India, for example, defines it
as follows: "acts done by using weapons and explosive substances or
other methods in a manner as to cause or likely to cause death or
injuries to any person or persons or loss or damage to property or
disruption of essential supplies and services with intent to threaten
the unity and integrity of [the state] or to strike terror in any
section of the people."2

Western countries are especially prone to such limited definitions.
England and Canada both have introduced a view on the meaning
of "terrorism" in their own legislatures, and they focus only on
terrorism with a "purpose" or an "objective," usually political.3

The Limited American View
The U.S. seems the most attached to the limited view of terrorism.
The U.S. Code, section 22, reads: "the term ´terrorism´ means
premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents."4
Here the term "noncombatants" is meant to denote military personnel
not engaged in combat at the time of the incident, as in the case of
the U.S. Marines killed in the bombing of their barracks in Lebanon
in 1983.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has laid out in greater
detail the crime of terrorism: "the unlawful use of force or violence
against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the
civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of
political or social objectives."5

Again, these definitions tie terrorism to political aims. The U.S.
statute refers to "politically motivated" acts, while the FBI´s
definition requires that the act be "in furtherance of political or
social objectives." Even the "Patriot Act," inspired by the mass
murder of September 11 and passed overwhelmingly by both Houses of
the U.S. Congress on October 26, defines terrorism either by citing
the U.S. Code, noted above, or with the following addition
on "domestic terrorism":

[Domestic terrorism] involve[s] acts dangerous to human life that are
a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any
State; and (B) appear to be intended (or to have the effect) -- (i)
to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the
policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to
affect the conduct of a government (or any function thereof) by mass
destruction, assassination, or kidnapping (or threat thereof).6

Here, too, lies the persistent attempt to link terrorism with agendas
of coercion or intimidation. It is as though U.S. lawmakers insist
that many fundamentalist murderers are something other than
terrorists, or that no terrorist could be so irrational as to kill
thousands of people -- for nothing. In short, these definitions fail
to grasp the transcendent terrorist.

A Recurring Blind Spot
This legal gap is more than a mistake of interpretation. In the U.S.,
it reflects and reinforces a deeper myth that blinds U.S. law and
policy. It is a view that insists that there is no violence for its
own sake. Rather, terrorists play a strategic game, similar to other
parties in a conflict, with political goals and the intention to
achieve them. The only difference is that they will resort to
desperate measures.

Brian Michael Jenkins, a leading terrorism expert in the U.S. and
frequent advisor to the State Department, once summarized the
terrorist´s mindset: "Their actions are calculated to create an
atmosphere of fear and alarm to force social or political
change....Their violence is not an end in itself, but for advancing a
goal. Political terrorists believing they´re the vanguard of the
people´s will, use violence to shock, get publicity, and leverage a
government."7 To his credit, Jenkins acknowledged that not all
terrorists were as constrained or strategically motivated. But his
view reflected a consensus about most terrorists.

The first World Trade Center bombings in 1993 started to erode this
idea. Years later, in an address to Congress, U.S. counter-terrorism
czar Michael A. Sheehan noted that the 1993 attacks ushered in a new
era in which "terrorism is taking on a whole new face." Witness the
rise of the "freelancing terrorists," he said, "driven by religious
and cultural ideology to carry out increasingly lethal attacks."8 At
the same time, the State Department´s annual report on international
terrorism warned of "a change from primarily politically motivated
terrorism to terrorism that is more religiously or ideologically
motivated."9

The majority of experts, who continued to stick to the political
model, were dubbed "the academic group" by insiders in the field.10
They included experts like Jenkins and Professor Ehud Sprinzak, who
had argued that "most terrorists possess political objectives."11

But there was a hint of change even in this group. Bruce Hoffman, a
terrorism scholar who worked at Jenkins´ think tank, wrote in later
years: "For the religious terrorist, violence is first and foremost a
sacramental act or divine duty executed in direct response to some
theological demand or imperative."12

Still, if there was a new recognition of transcendent terrorism, it
had not penetrated official U.S. definitions or accounts. Even
Sheehan, who had been warning of the change, argued that politics had
to be the underlying agenda, hidden somewhere beneath the new
terrorist´s mystical veil. "Especially since the end of the Cold War,
a number of terrorist groups have portrayed their cause in religious
and cultural terms," he said. "This is often a transparent tactic
designed to conceal political goals."13

As late as the spring of 2001, when Sheehan had completed his post,
U.S. policy continued to lend credence to accounts of terrorism as a
political tool with definable goals. The Mitchell Report, highly
esteemed in the upper echelons of the State Department, offered a
direct definition of terrorism: "Terrorism involves the deliberate
killing and injuring of randomly selected noncombatants for political
ends. It seeks to promote a political outcome by spreading terror and
demoralization throughout a population."14 This doctrine, in spirit,
remains the common thread in the official U.S. definitions of
terrorism.

Understanding the Paradigm Shift
The classic doctrine appears to be mistaken. Many terrorists seem to
act out of a transcendent, if evil, idealism that is, at most,
incidentally related to its political or strategic outcomes.
Transcendent terrorists reflect Hoffman´s description of violence as
a "sacramental act or divine duty." Although these purists may also
have grievances, political or otherwise, their violence is not
necessarily calculated to redress such concerns. It may, for example,
serve only to strike at a target identified with Satan. The act is
symbolically or religiously significant in its own right, regardless
of what it achieves.

The words of Mohammed Atta, on the morning of his deadly mission on
September 11, reflect the insignificance of the earthly results of
his mission: "When you board the plane, remember that this is a
battle in the sake of God, which is worth the whole world and all
that is in it. As the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) has
said."15

In fact, the ideologies of terrorist organizations may always have
been as transcendent as they were political, even as the Western
perspective grasped only half the story. Although many of the groups
on the new U.S. list of terrorist organizations have political
grievances, their ideological differences with the U.S. and its
allies appear to stem as much from what the U.S. is as from what "the
great Satan" does.

Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the spiritual patriarch of Egyptian Islamic
Jihad and the 1993 bombings, has said: "Hit hard and kill the enemies
of God in every spot to rid it of the descendants of apes and fed at
the tables of Zionism, Communism and imperialism....There is no truce
in jihad against the enemies of Allah."16

Abdel Rahman´s underling, El-Said Nosair, was equally symbolic in his
stated objectives. He called for attacks on "enemies of Islam"
by "destroying the structure of their civilized pillars such as the
touristic infrastructure...and their high world buildings which they
are proud of and their statues...and the buildings in which their
leaders gather."17

Even groups far removed from the Arabian Peninsula or the Persian
Gulf, where the U.S. has had its most celebrated influence, likewise
see America as inherently impure. The Amir of Markaz, an Islamist,
anti-Indian group based in Pakistan, has stated: "Democracy is among
the menaces we inherited from an alien government. It is part of the
system we are fighting against. Many of our brothers feel that they
can establish an Islamic society by working within the system. They
are mistaken. It is not possible to work within a democracy and
establish an Islamic system. You just dirty your hands by dealing
with it. If God gives us a chance, we will try to bring in the pure
concept of an Islamic Caliphate."18

Markaz´s spiritual founder was none other than Bin Laden´s own guru,
Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, who had settled in Pakistan. His declared aim
was the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate throughout the world,
using violent jihad as the vehicle.19

Similarly, the Lebanese Hizbullah, long mistaken as a local
resistance organization, outlined its position regarding the U.S. in
its founding charter, drafted more than a decade before anyone spoke
of the new terrorists: "We combat abomination and we shall tear out
its very roots, its primary roots, which are the U.S. All attempts
made to drive us into marginal actions will fail, especially as our
determination to fight the U.S. is solid."20

Hizbullah eventually, if slowly, arrived on the list of terrorist
groups whom the U.S. has deemed unlawful for any state to sponsor.
Nevertheless, Syria, a long-time backer of Hizbullah, appeared to
have taken a key signal from the reluctance in the State Department
to add the Lebanese group to its terrorist list. Hizbullah, with the
aid of Syria, has launched repeated terrorist attacks on Israel near
the Shebaa farms, recognized by the UN to be an area outside of
Lebanese territory. After Israel responded by bombing a Syrian radar
station in eastern Lebanon, there were three months of quiet. But
just three weeks after the September 11 attacks, when the West seemed
hopeful that Syria would join the anti-Bin Laden coalition, Hizbullah
suddenly resumed attacks on Israel from the Shebaa farms. Apparently,
Syria had been emboldened by a perception that the West would
tolerate Syrian sponsorship of a terrorist organization, as Western
countries sought Syrian support for their coalition.21

The attempt to attach local political agendas to Hizbullah, by
branding it a Lebanese resistance organization, proved false when it
continued to attack Israel even after Prime Minister Ehud Barak
withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon. Perhaps analysts should have
focused on Hizbullah´s values, enshrined in its charter,
demonstrating that Hizbullah would oppose any Western-style state as
a matter of principle, not politics. As stated in its charter: "We
reject both the USSR and the U.S., both Capitalism and Communism, for
both are incapable of laying the foundations for a just society."22

Again, it is the very identity of the U.S. -- as secular, as a
democracy, as capitalist -- that renders it the enemy of Hizbullah
and other terrorist groups. These terrorists pay as much tribute to
anti-Western values as to any political gripe they may have with the
West. Their terrorism, especially suicide bombing, is often
transcendent.23

Policy Implications
A new understanding of transcendent terrorism would support a
different policy objective, which could be summarized as follows:
terrorists should be fought, not bought. Because terrorists do not
necessarily act out of political or strategic motivations, there may
be no way to appease or frustrate would-be terrorists by manipulating
their interests and incentives. No change in policy could deflect the
passion of a group who opposes a nation´s very identity.

That leaves an alternative response: to isolate terrorism as a tactic
and attempt to criminalize it and build consensus for banishing it
from civil society, as recent UN resolutions have attempted to do.
One recent declaration stated: "The States Members of the United
Nations solemnly reaffirm their unequivocal condemnation of all acts,
methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable,
wherever and by whomever committed, including those which jeopardize
the friendly relations among States and peoples and threaten the
territorial integrity and security of States."24

Where these resolutions fall short is in definition. As Boaz Ganor,
of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, has
argued, "an objective definition of terrorism is not only possible;
it is also indispensable to any serious attempt to combat
terrorism."25

But if definitions of terrorism are to capture the transcendent
terrorists as well, they must be stripped of qualifying language
like "in the pursuit of political objectives." That leaves an account
of terrorism that focuses on the act itself: violence directed at
civilians identified with a national, religious, or other kind of
community.

Such a focused understanding of terrorism, one that disregards its
context, may seem incompatible with trying to understand the roots
and causes of such behavior. However, an adequate definition of
terrorism may equally serve to remove the misconceptions about its
roots. Classical accounts, that mistakenly linked all terrorism to
goals, tended to discount ideology as a motivation for terrorism;
they focused instead on purported sociological, political, or even
psychological causes. Thus, terrorists were classified variously as
desperate, enraged, or insane. But even a cursory glance at the
profiles of the September 11 hijackers and murderers gives lie to
such accounts.26

Indeed, strategic or political terms do not suffice: the attack could
not be reasonably calculated to advance a political goal, even the
removal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia (said to be a Bin Laden
aim). And even if the attacks could be so construed, the hijackers´
own written notes suggest no political agenda driving their mission.
Psychological terms, however, are equally inadequate: the attackers
do not appear to have been enraged, desperate, or even noticeably
deviant people. Perhaps, then, the most appropriate discourse remains
the one that naturally and immediately came to mind on the day of the
devastation: moral terms. Terrorism, in these terms, would be
described as simply evil, an abominable violation of human decency
and the sanctity of life. In this context, it would serve neither
truth nor justice to hide terrorism in the guise of politics and
strategy. (JCPA.ORG. 11/15/01)